


if later never comes

by FreezingKaiju



Series: i hear thunder and raise my umbrella high [4]
Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Common Cold, F/F, Ikari Gendo Is A Horrible Father, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Katsuragi Misato Is Trying Her Best, Rei Doesn't Get A Lot Of Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:28:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23307565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreezingKaiju/pseuds/FreezingKaiju
Summary: When her sworn rival calls to tell her it might be the end, Asuka can't just sit by and listen. She needs to be by her side; and even if the situation turns out to be something different, a moment is still shared.
Relationships: Ayanami Rei/Souryuu Asuka Langley
Series: i hear thunder and raise my umbrella high [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2033542
Comments: 8
Kudos: 59





	if later never comes

Sunday, midmorning, late December. Asuka was, to put it mildly, worried as fuck. It had been _days_ since she had last seen her sworn rival, and Ayanami was never this scarce. She’d even asked Misato, but got a response of “she’s just been in her room a lot, not sure why.” And of course, Rei had missed or declined her calls. 

Her mom’s old armchair was the perfect place to sprawl out, stare at her phone and worry. Being near it made her feel tense on memory’s sake alone. Idly, she reflected that said mother still felt like she haunted the house despite the eight years she’d been “missing, presumed dead.” At this point Asuka would prefer dead. What comfort she had in those memories were gone, as gone as the phone number from some old crush that—

Her phone rang. She nearly threw it in shock, then realized: _Fly Me To The Moon_. Rei’s custom ringtone. Asuka’s heart skipped a beat and she stared at the screen. It was Ayanami, of course. “Am I gonna need to add ‘psychic’ to the wisecrack pile?” she muttered, and pressed to answer.

“Wonder Girl? Whatcha need?” Asuka snapped, coating her excitement and relief with a thick shell of irritation.

“Asuka Langley Soryu,” Ayanami’s voice began, and Asuka knew something was wrong. This was her “worst days” voice, her “I’ll crumple in the wind and fly away if you don’t catch me” voice, the voice she used to tell Asuka about what her scum of a father had done back when he wasn’t behind bars, or when Asuka has seriously fucked up, or that time she broke her arm in the woods and—

“If I am telling you this,” Ayanami cut her off, “then I am about to die.”

Asuka felt both her heart and stomach plummet to hell. Her hands shook, and she fumbled the phone, narrowly avoiding smashing it on the tile floor. Positioning it back to her ear, she choked out, “ _What?!_ ” She didn’t even care about how weak she sounded. Not now.

“I knew this was coming,” Rei continued, “but my... father is making good on his threats. I can feel my body breaking down. I will not survive the night.”

Asuka scrambled to process that while Rei continued. Of course, her _disgusting_ father was why she had that weird cloning fear, he had all sorts of scientific bullshit Asuka couldn’t even hope to understand under wraps.

A horribly hoarse cough jolted Asuka’s train of thought, as Rei cleared her throat and continued, “I wrote something. A while ago. It was... I meant it as an apology. I added more, and now it… it is my goodbye.”

She was saying goodbye. Her Wonder Girl, Ayanami, _Rei_ was saying goodbye to Asuka. 

Some selfish part of her brain wanted to scream that it’s not fair, that how dare she, that she made a _promise_ . Okay, maybe that selfish part was most of her brain. But more than that, she... if Rei was really dying, she was dying _alone_. That was un-fucking-acceptable.

“Rei,” Asuka choked out, jumping straight past any fake formality as she jumped to her feet, “Save it.” Phone still to her ear, she bolted over to the hall closet. The rain still poured outside, she needed a raincoat, rainboots, and most of all her lucky umbrella. All the luck she could get.

“Asuka...” The simple plea of her name steeled Asuka’s resolve even more. “Asuka, please--”

“I mean it!” Asuka snapped into the phone as she yanked a pair of orange galoshes and her candy-red coat out of the closet. “Save it, because I’m coming over!”

“You do not need to,” Rei responded, quick enough Asuka could guess it was reflex for her.

“If you’re _dying_ ,” Asuka responded, voice cracking, “I’ll hold your hand until the end!”

“...thank you, Asuka,” Rei whispered, and hung up.

 _Where the fuck did that line come from?!_ Asuka thought to herself, shoving her phone away as she tightened her rainboots and zipped up her coat. 

She thought about yelling something to the effect of “don’t worry, I’m going out for a walk,” but pocketed that for whenever she ends up living with anyone who gives a shit. 

Maybe with Rei. 

Except that’d never happen now.

With that awful thought fueling the fire within Asuka to a roiling inferno, she stormed to the door and flung it open. Outside, the neighborhood was covered with the hostile downpour that was the usual Oregon weather, soaking the homes and hills beyond, not that any of that was even visible now.

Her umbrella unfurled, forming her shield, and Asuka Langley Soryu charged into the rain.

\---

The fact that Asuka’s mad dash to the Katsuragi household _hadn’t_ ended in her cracking her skull on the sidewalk was a testament to why she stayed superstitious about her umbrella. Or maybe she was just the best. Asuka would rather believe the latter.

Finally out of the rain, sopping hair clinging to her face and obscuring her vision (but not enough to stop her from seeing that familiar 0103 on the door), Asuka took a moment to close her umbrella and check the lock. Did Rei’s guardian leave it unlocked again?

No dice. Responsible, but _ugh_. She groaned, balled her free hand into a fist, and slammed it into the door. Then again, and a third. 

“MISATO! SHINJI! OPEN THE DOOR, YOU FUCKING--”

The door clicked, and Asuka let up her assault. 

“Geez, kid, calm down,” Misato groaned, yanking the door wide open. “What do you want? If you're selling something, I'm not buying it."

“Outta my way, Misato,” Asuka growled, pushing past her and into the house, “I’m on a mission.”

“Dramatic today, are we?” 

Asuka’s teeth clicked together. She was surprised they didn’t shatter. Whirling on her heel, she gave Misato what she hoped was a withering look and not a pathetic one. Misato’s eyebrow shot up, and Asuka snapped, “Don’t you know what’s happening?!”

“Soryu, kid, what’re you talking about?”

“Rei’s _dying,_ ” Asuka said, unable now to keep her voice from cracking. 

Misato’s expression turned almost cartoonishly confused. "...Rei? Is dying? Sorry, wanna run that by me again?" There was something in her eyes Asuka couldn't recognize.

 _I don’t have time to waste bickering,_ Asuka repeated inside her head, and stormed over to one of the small house’s closets, yanking it open and grabbing a towel. Gotta dry off, wouldn’t want Wonder Girl’s last moments to be _soggy_. Something jolted through her heart, like an inch of piano wire, though the thought itself was corny. 

“Why?!” Misato responded, genuine concern now creeping into her voice, “And why do you know where I keep the towels?”

“No time!” Asuka tossed the towel back in the closet, kicked off her boots and bolted up the nearby stairwell. _Scheiße, verdammt! What if I’m late?! What if I get up there and I never hear her voice again, never see that rare fire in her stupid red eyes, never hold her hand again, never--_

Asuka reached the door and damn near ripped it off its hinges. “REI!”

The response to her scream was a hoarse cough, and Asuka zeroed in immediately on her rival.

“Asuka...” Rei croaked. She was curled in a pile of blankets, eyes red, one hand visibly clutching a phone and the other wrapped in the pile. Her face looked paler than a fish’s belly and twice as sickly. 

Overcoming her shock, Asuka rushed to her side, sliding to a stop and slamming to her knees ( _OW, SCHEIßE,_ she refrained from screaming).

“You... are you here, or is this a hallucination?” Rei asked, her watery gaze resembling her version of curiosity rather than suspicion. 

Asuka lightly bopped her on the shoulder. “Feel real to ya?”

“That does,” Rei conceded. She let out a sigh that crunched into a cough, and averted her eyes again. “I... I will proceed with what I must say, then.”

“Whatever you need, _Li--_ W-Wonder Girl.” Asuka was still too much of a coward, even to this end, to call her _liebling_ , even just once.

Rei breathed in, then out, seemingly calming herself despite her current... state. She cleared her throat, pulled out a piece of paper, and began. “Asuka Langley Soryu. My rival. My complement and antithesis. When we first met, I had never considered the possibility that you would become an integral part of my life.”

_I’m that important to her?_

“I had yet to consider my life as one outside of family and duty. But then... you arrived. With your scraped knees and messy hair, your talk of heroics and rivalry.”

Asuka smiled, remembering those early years, before everything went to the conglomerate pissfire of court cases, dead parents, abandonment, and high school that made up the drama of her and Rei’s lives. And Shinji’s too, some small part of her mind reminded her, but she shut that part up.

“You singled me out as your rival, and with that, I began to feel... as if I mattered, somehow. As if I could do something outside of my father’s desires.” Rei put a hand to her own heart. “Asuka, you named me your Wonder Girl, before I had a name to call my own. In some way, I am glad... to be that at the end.”

“Wonder Girl...” Asuka whispered, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. Traitors, all of them. Bastards only showed up when she already knew what she was feeling, never bothered for the confusing times. “If this is the fucking end... then hold my hand, and hold it ‘til you’re gone. Think you can do that?”

Rei nodded. Her face promised a smile, but only delivered its ghost.

Asuka held out her hand, and, shakily, Rei withdrew one of her own from the curl of blankets and laid it in hers. Asuka braced herself, expecting to feel Rei’s last pulse, to feel a hand as warm as the dying sun, or as cold as the touch of death.

Instead, Rei’s hand... was slightly warmer than usual.

Not clammy as the grave, not burning up, just... lukewarm.

Asuka’s despondency was shoved aside for a moment. Something was wrong... or maybe, just maybe, something was _right_. 

“Rei, I know this is gonna sound stupid, but... how are you feeling? Specifically?”

Rei blinked. “My nose has stopped, my head burns, my throat is dissolving, I have little energy... my body is shutting down,” she repeated.

And Asuka’s heart felt like it had made its grand re-entrance.

“Rei. Ayanami. Wonder Girl,” Asuka cycled through her terms, her paper-thin emotional walls returning as her hope flooded back in. “Idiot. You perfect fucking dolt. You complete, utter...” she trailed off into a laugh, one that totally didn’t sound like crying, shut up.

Rei’s eyes widened, just the slightest bit. “Am I not...?”

“You have a stupid cold.”

Rei blinked. Then coughed. “My organs are... not dissolving?”

“No. Nope, you might feel shitty for a bit but you’re... you’re gonna live.” Asuka could feel her smile widen, and for once she didn’t particularly fucking care. Her Wonder Girl was going to live.

Asuka pretended she couldn’t see Rei shove a stack of papers under her pillow. Fuck it, she could save that speech. For never, hopefully. “I worried you for nothing,” Rei said.

“That makes more sense,” Misato added from the doorway before Asuka could respond. “There isn’t anything that’d kill a girl like Rei in this town!” Yet despite the cheerful line, Asuka’d say Misato’s expression lined up with “holy shit I almost got hit by a truck.” 

Asuka opened her mouth to retort, but she felt Rei’s fingers, still interlocked with her own, loosen; now less of a desperate grasp, more gentle, yet still Rei was there. _Scheiße_ , Asuka wanted to hold her closer. Give her that kinda comfort, not like she actually _wanted_ to embrace her rival! Not at fucking all. No!

Rei remained quiet, as did Misato. The latter, grip loosened on the doorframe, leaning, casual and comfortable; the former remained in her blanket cocoon. The silence was… nice. Kinda. The soft patter of the rain on the windows and roof, the low hum of the heater, some distant noises of Misato’s huge weird dog having a dream, all made Asuka feel more serene than the cold, vaguely-beer-scented silence of her home. The Katsuragi household usually smelled like booze, sure, but only the kitchen.

“Asuka?”

“Yeah, Rei?”

“...Forget what I said. I will... save the rest for later.”

Asuka chuckled. “Let’s hope later never comes.”


End file.
